EOC Week 2: Zippy Airline Catering

1. The changes made by the hospitality company are not really significant redesigns of the work done by the employees because they are essentially doing the same amount just with fewer steps. They will be doing the same work but with less ingredients. This means the employees have a little less responsibility, but they will be forced to work faster. Not everyone works at the same pace so this will require managers to look very closely at how many meals need to be produced and use that to set productivity and performance standards for employees. According to page 72 of Managing Hospitality Human Resources, productivity standards are “the criteria that define the acceptable quantity of work to be completed by employees.” By having these standards it helps employees know what to expect from their workday and to strive to do better than those standards insuring that the company will get the most effective amount of work out of their employees.

2. The employees should end up less stressed and have a closer bond with their fellow co-workers as a result of this redesign. According to page 68, “Team building views employees as members of work groups rather than as individuals. Goals and rewards are directed toward team efforts rather than toward individual efforts.” These employees make up one large team that are not used to working in an atmosphere together so by offering bonuses, it will ensure that they look optimistically upon this new idea.

3. In order to prepare employees for this change and ensure success with the new system, I would have had an employee get-to-know–each other luncheon. This would give employees time to adjust to the idea of working as part of a team and let them get to know who they will be working with. I would also take this as an opportunity to go through the job simplification process with the employees so they will know their new job specifications. According to page 67, “job simplification is useful when the skills required to perform the tasks are not extensive and do not require a great deal of managerial involvement.”